Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

can provide only a brief overview of these paradigms here. For a more detailed review of
these methodological approaches, see Abernethy (2001), Abernethy, Summers and Ford
(1998) and Boutcher (2002).

Psychometric approach

Some sport psychologists have attempted to measure individual differences in attentional
processes in athletes through the use of specially designed paper-and-pencil tests. For
example, the “Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style” (TAIS; Nideffer, 1976) is one
of the most popular inventories in this field and is used as a screening device in many
applied sport psychology settings, such as in the Australian Institute for Sport (Bond and
Sargent, 1995; Nideffer, Sagal, Lowry and Bond, 2001). It contains 144 items, broken
down into 17 sub-scales, which purport to measure people’s attentional processes in
everyday situations (e.g., “When I read, it is easy to block out everything but the book”).
Although the original version of this test was not intended for use with athletic
populations, several sport-specific versions of the TAIS have emerged in recent years.
The TAIS is based on Nideffer’s model of attention which can be outlined briefly as
follows. According to Nideffer, people’s attentional focus varies simultaneously along
two independent dimensions—namely, “width” and “direction”. With regard to width,
attention is believed to range along a continuum from a broad focus (where one is aware
of many stimulus features at the same time) to a narrow one (where irrelevant
information is excluded effectively). Attentional “direction” refers to the target of one’s
focus: whether it is external or internal. These dimensions of width and direction may be
combined factorially to yield four hypothetical attentional styles. To illustrate, a narrow
external attentional focus in sport is implicated when a golfer looks at the hole before
putting. By contrast, a narrow internal focus is required when a gymnast mentally
rehearses a skill such as back-flip while waiting to compete. Despite its plausibility and
popularity, however, this test has several flaws which are discussed in Box 4.2.

Box 4.2 Thinking critically about...the Test of Attentional and

Interpersonal Style (TAIS)

The Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS; Nideffer, 1976) is a popular and
plausible test of attentional processes. Nevertheless, its validity and utility have been
questioned. So, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the TAIS?
On the positive side, the TAIS has face validity because it seems to make “intuitive
sense to coaches and athletes” (Bond and Sargent, 1995, p. 394). Also, there Is some
empirical support for its construct validity. For example, Nideffer (1976) reported that
unsuccessful swimmers were attentionally “overloaded” when compared to successful
counterparts. Similarly, Wilson, Ainsworth and Bird (1985) discovered that volleyball
players who had been rated by their coaches as “good concentrators” under competitive
stress scored significantly lower on the “broad external” focus (BET) and “broad
internal” focus (BIT) subscales than did “poor concentrators”. Unfortunately, such
strengths must be weighed against the following weaknesses of this test First, it is
questionable whether athletes are capableof evaluating their own attentional processes

Sport and exercise psychology: A critical introduction 102